Tajikistan

Tajikistan is a landlocked, mountainous country in Central Asia, between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China and Afghanistan. Mountains of the Pamir range cover more than 90% of it, most land lies above 3,000 m (9,800 ft), and the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan separates it from Pakistan. Dushanbe is the capital; Tajik is the state language and Russian the official language between ethnic groups.

The proto-urban settlement of Sarazm dates back thousands of years, and in antiquity the north belonged to Sogdiana, with cities such as Khujand and Panjakent on the Silk Road. Achaemenid Persia, Alexander the Great, the Kushans, Arab caliphates and the Samanids ruled in turn; the Samanids revived Persian culture and supported the poet Rudaki. Mongols, Timurids and the Khanate of Bukhara followed before the Russian conquest. In 1924 the territory became an autonomous republic inside Soviet Uzbekistan and on 5 December 1929 a full Soviet republic. Independence was declared on 9 September 1991.

Tajikistan is a presidential republic of four provinces. The economy depends on money sent home by migrants, many of them in Russia, and on aluminium and cotton. The state-owned Tajik Aluminium Company runs the largest aluminium plant in Central Asia. The Vakhsh and Panj rivers drive hydropower, the Nurek Dam is the second highest dam in the world, and the Rogun dam is planned to rise even higher.

Sarazm is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Glaciers in the mountains feed rivers that drain toward the Aral Sea, and the Gorno-Badakhshan region keeps languages such as Shughni, Rushani and Wakhi. The Yaghnobi people speak the only living descendant of Sogdian. Gushtigiri wrestling is the national sport, and buzkashi riders compete for a goat carcass. Tajik artisans built the Dushanbe Tea House, a gift to Boulder, Colorado, in 1988.